If "A Hard Day's Night" is the "Citizen Kane" of rock films -- as it's been described -- then "Saturday Night Fever" is the "Hard Day's Night" of ... something. Perhaps rock-era dance films. Or coming-of-age films in the last three decades.

The thing is, "Saturday Night Fever," like "A Hard Day's Night" 13 years previous, was a hugely popular film whose soundtrack dominated the charts. And the film was also a critical surprise. What might have been simply an empty-headed exercise in exploiting the disco craze is instead an insightful, riveting journey, by turns tough, tender and funny, of a disaffected youth.

Or yout', if one lapses into Brooklynese.

John Travolta, tapping into dramatic reserves unplumbed by his role as Vinnie Barbarino in the sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter," plays the swaggering Brooklyn disco king Tony Manero, who comes to realize that there's a whole wide world outside of his Bay Ridge tribal grounds.

Unfortunately, Travolta sits out the bonus features in the 30th anniversary-marking "Saturday Night Fever Special Collector's Edition."

He's missed, even if producer Robert Stigwood, director John Badham, surviving Bee Gees Barry and Robin Gibb and various cast members -- Karen Lynn Gorney, Donna Pescow, Joseph Cali, Paul Pape, Barry Miller, Denny Dillon, Sam Coppola and Monti Rock III, among them -- do their best to look back fondly on a five-part making-of retrospective.

Entertainment mogul Stigwood recalls that he first met Travolta when the latter auditioned for a role in the Stigwood-produced 1973 film version of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Four years later, Stigwood believed he had found the perfect screen vehicle for Travolta after reading Nik Cohn's New York magazine article on a Brooklyn disco, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," adapted for the screen by the late Norman Wexler.

Stigwood then enlisted Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, who recorded for Stigwood's RSO label, to write and cut some new songs for the film. Which they did. At a country estate/studio in France, an ocean away from the Brooklyn disco-meat market where much of the film's action would take place.

For his director, Stigwood took a chance on John Badham, the older brother of actress Mary Badham, who's played Scout in 1962's "To Kill a Mockingbird." John Badham had a lot of TV credits, but a thin film resume. However, he proved an able general, milking fine performances not just from Travolta but from a cast of veteran character actors and young unknowns (including Fran Drescher). Badham had his share of distractions, most notably an army of Travolta-worshippers who descended on the film's Brooklyn set to wreak havoc.

Aside from audio commentary by John Badham and the five-part "Catching the Fever" look-back doc, the special collector's edition includes a Cali-hosted travelogue of the Brooklyn sites where the film was shot; a "Dance Like Travolta With John Cassese" how-to; and several other features.

On a separate note, Reprise re-releases "Bee Gees Greatest" in a two-CD edition.

Russell stars as a crazed stuntman who stalks his female victims behind the wheel of a death-proof muscle car. Described as a "vehicular slasher thriller" that twinned with Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" in a retro doubleheader, "Death Proof" is a tart fruit roll-up of Tarantino festishes -- startling violence, jive talk, rock-snob sountrack oddities, cult films and women's feet. Thirty minutes cut from the theatrical version have been restored. Extras include five featurettes.

A 15-year-old Jersey girl is determined to honor the memory of her beloved older brother by making the high school boy's varsity soccer team. The story is inspired by real events from the lives of Elisabeth and Andrew Shue and directed by Elisabeth's husband. In soccer, the right soft touch at the right time can be as effective as the kind of bullet shot the British call a screamer. Extras include a making-of doc.

Moving football drama inspired by the real-life tragedy and triumph of the Marshall University football team, rebuilt after a 1970 plane crash killed most of the squad and plunged the town of Huntingdon, W.Va., into mourning. Extras include a featurette on legendary college coaches.

Eight films -- "The Wild Angels," "Bucket of Blood," "The Trip," "Bloody Mama," "The Man With the X-Ray Eyes," "Gas-s-s-s!," "The Young Races" and "The Premature Burial" -- from the King of the B's cult film director Corman. Too wild, baby. No extras.